Dark Days Challenge week 12 - Chicken barley soup

We are both having colds here Chez Green Leanings, and we've just had a blizzard... so clearly, dinner is soup! Soup is one of those things I cannot in good conscience buy (unless it is at a favorite restaurant, of course!) It is just too easy to make, and really requires very few ingredients. This week's soup was chicken barley, and it contained local chicken thighs, chicken stock, hulled barley*, celery, carrots and parsley. Non-local ingredients were shallots and poultry seasoning. As a side dish I served toasted semolina bread doused in butter, garlic, and Ludlow (a semi-hard aged cheese.) I cooked the barley in chicken stock and a little water (it took about an hour.) I could have just throw everything into the pot together, but since the chicken thighs were bone-in/skin on I cooked them separately in a skillet. I set them aside to cool slightly as I sauteed the chopped carrots, shallot, and celery in the remaining chicken fat. Cooking things in chicken fat makes them extra-tasty! I left them a bit crunchy, as they were going into the pot with the barley. They joined the barley about 15 minutes before the barley was done. Once the chicken breasts had cooled I skinned them, shredded the meat and added it to the barley. I added the bones to the pot as well, since it seemed a shame to waste all that potential flavor. (I could have added them to my bag o' bones in the freezer that I save for making stock, but that was a little too ambitious for me today.) I added the chopped parsley at the very end, and it was the perfect finishing touch. The chicken and stock came from North Market Poultry and Game at the North Market. Carrots are from Persinger Farms (and were purchased in the fall and stored in my crisper drawer.) Celery is from last year's garden, and was found squirreled away in the corner of my freezer. Bread was from Omega Artisan Baking at the North Market. Butter is from Hartzler's Dairy. Garlic is from H-W Organic farms. Cheese is from Blue Jacket Dairy. *The barley came from a local Amish farm called Stutzman Farms. I *think* they grew it (my area of Ohio is in the range for commercial barley farming) but I'm not 100% sure. They do mill some non-local grains in addition to the wide range of grains that they grow. So I will describe this barley as "local as possible," because if anyone grows it in Ohio, it's Stutzman.

One Local Summer - week 1

Our meal for week one was brunch, which is possibly my favorite meal of the week. This one featured serviceberry pancakes (more on the serviceberry below) with bacon, early cherries, and of course maple syrup!

The pancakes were made from a mix from Quiver Full Farm (~33 miles) along with buttermilk leftover from making butter with cream from Snowville Creamery (~107 miles.) The bacon is from Bluescreek (~30 miles) at the North Market; maple syrup from Pleiades (~42 miles), and serviceberries and cherries from Rhoads (~42 miles.)

So what, you may ask, is a serviceberry? I'd never heard of them either, but my mom has a painting of a cedar waxwing on what must be a serviceberry tree (I spent my childhood trying to figure out what kind of berry it was. I am all about the berries.) They grow on small trees/shrubs and have a crown like a blueberry, and the taste is a bit similar. They are also known as shadbush, saskatoon, and juneberry (although the name seems to depend on the variety, of which there are many.) The city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is named after the plant (saskatoon is a Cree Indian word); they are called juneberries because they ripen in June, and shadbush because they flower when the shad-fish spawn. There are a few stories about why they are called serviceberries: either they served as a signal that the ground was unfrozen enough to bury the dead, or the blooms were gathered for church services, or they bloomed (in April) when it was finally mild enough weather to travel to church. Or maybe it's because there is a related berry in Europe called "sorbus."

I saw them at the farmer's market on Saturday and couldn't resist bringing home a pint. I've never met a fruit I didn't like, and the serviceberry is no exception. You can eat them raw or use them as you would blueberries in any recipe. They were quite good in pancakes!

First Farmer's Sighting!

I must confess that we aren't responsible for discovering the first farmers this year - I knew there were farmers showing up because of Twitter. (Yep, I'm a twitter-head. You can follow me here if you are into that sort of thing.) With the winter markets still going strong, and with my Saturday morning writing group, we just haven't been haunting the market in search of early produce.

But we got up early today and headed to the North Market, and were not disappointed. There were two farmers outside: Toad Hill and Somerset Herbs. We put off buying herb plants (my pot of herbs seems to be dead, but I want to give it another few weeks before writing it off and buying new ones) but picked up a lettuce mix, eggs, and dried tomatoes from Toad Hill.

Inside the market we found some duck legs from North Market poultry (a back-up Easter dinner, since my mom has laryngitis and may not feel like company tomorrow), bacon and pork chops from Blue's Creek, the obligatory cinnamon roll from Omega (along with some day-old cross buns, since they hadn't baked the fresh ones yet), Honey Vanilla ice cream from Jeni's, and a few local products at the Greener Grocer: ramps (yay!), milk from Snowville Creamery, and shitake and cremini mushrooms (we also picked up some spinach, but I can't remember where it was grown.)

Market day means market lunch, so we had a Greek omelet with the eggs, spinach, and dried tomatoes, as well as some feta cheese from an earlier winter market. I am slowly but surely learning to like egg yolks, and this was my second omelet in two days. It was pretty darn good!

Dark Days of Winter Challenge - week 10

Week 10! Only three months until asparagus! (I hope - spring can be fickle in the Midwest.)

This week's meal was one of my attempts at keeping meat portions small and vegetable portions high. The starch portions were a little high as well, but homemade stuffing is one of the great joys in life.

The meat portion was one boneless chicken thigh (I pan-fried it with the skin on for flavor then removed it for waistline issues.) It was just okay; I am so used to using fresh chicken that I found the frozen stuff a little weird. (Next time it will go in a stew.) It was from Speckled Hen Farm in Cardington, Ohio.

Next up was the pan gravy. I had some of the gnarliest chicken stock imaginable (from North Market Poultry; it was made from chicken feet and came from their own kitchen, as they were out of the usual stock in the butcher case.) It made a tasty and delightful gravy, as you might imagine.

Vegetable dishes were corn with butter and adobo seasoning (I am currently crazy about the combination of corn and adobo!) and green beans with olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Starches were mashed green mountain potatoes (skins on of course!) with butter and milk from Hartzler's Dairy, and homemade stuffing (the bread was baked at the grocery store, but the celery was from my garden and the onions from H-W Organic Farms.

I wouldn't want to cook a meal like this every day, but it's nice to eat like this every once in a while. Especially if someone else does the dishes!

Dark Days of Winter Challenge - week 8

I'm blogging in a bit of a post-surgical fog this week; I had a lymph node in my neck excised for a biopsy on Wednesday, and I didn't anticipate how much recovering from it would, well, suck. Fortunately I made my dark days meal on the night before surgery!



This week I have returned to last year's favorite meal of spaghetti and meatballs. I've made it a dozen times at least and the darn things still aren't round, but I can live with that. The ground beef is grass-fed (which is the only beef we buy) from Long Meadows; the marinara sauce is from my freezer (tomatoes from Honeyrun Farm); the pasta is from Pastaria at the North Market.

This particular marinara sauce was very rich and red; it was a batch I made with my Foley food mill this past August. I nearly cried when I realized that the output from the food mill was more like tomato juice than sauce, but after it cooked down all day it made a respectable sauce.

Dark Days of Winter Challenge - week 6

Happy holidays!



This week's dinner was quite spur-of-the-moment; fortunately that moment happened at the North Market around lunchtime, so I had plenty of time to implement it. We'd gone to pick up some ice cream from Jeni's as a present for my mom, and our walk around the market took me past North Market Poultry. I was struck by the loveliness of the duck, so despite a small qualm as I remembered the pet ducks of my childhood, I purchased a couple of duck legs for our Christmas eve dinner. Never having cooked them before, a Google recipe search seemed to indicate that braising or confit were my best options. I selected this recipe from Epicurious because I had the ingredients on hand. The fruits were a raisin medley and dried cranberries, both from Trader Joe's - not local, but purchased for the mince pies I didn't get to make.* I used herbes de Provence instead of the thyme sprigs, because my thyme is currently frozen and I am patently incapable of following a recipe to the letter (except for baking.)

Side dishes were all local - All Blue and Desiree varieties of potatoes roasted in rendered duck fat; roasted Brussels sprouts from the freezer with homemade butter (from cream from Snowville Creamery), and mashed carnivale squash from Toad Hill organic farm with maple sugar from Pleiades. A nice glass of syrah from Ohio winery Kinkead Ridge (under their River Ridge Cellars label) accompanied the meal.

*All baking was put off because of the knife wound I sustained to my right thumb while trying to remove a new chef's knife from the package on Monday. I didn't really want to wrestle with dough with such a wound. I hereby lodge my complaint with the adage that "more injuries come from dull knives than sharp." As my brother (a former sous chef) says, "sharp knives just keep going." (It's healing nicely, thank goodness.)

Eat Local Challenge - days 2 through 5

I really thought I'd be keeping better track of my meals! I have been taking photos at the very least, so I will take you on a journey of some of the meals from the past week.

Thursday night was pasta night, with spinach linguine from Pastaria at the North Market, marinara sauce from cherry tomatoes from the garden, shitaake mushrooms from Toby Run (NM Farmer's market), grated mozzarella cheese from Blue Jacket Dairy (~58 miles in Bellefontaine, Ohio), and garlic bread (with wheat bread from the Clintonville farmer's market.) I used the same marina sauce, bread and cheese to make a pizza-on-toast for lunch.

Friday was fish night! I am delighted to add locally-farmed trout to my menu this month. The fish is rainbow trout from Freshwater Farms of Ohio, which clocks in at 68.2 miles from my doorstep. This fillet came pre-seasoned with an orange-basil marinade. Side dishes were braised rainbow chard with leeks, roasted cherry tomatoes, and roasted delicata squash with maple syrup (which didn't fit on the plate.)

Saturday was market day, and I had a very simple lunch of fried cheese (again from Blue Jacket Dairy) and Asian pears from Gillogly Orchards (104 miles by car, but still in the 100-mile radius as the crow flies.) For dinner we attended a local pizza function and were able to taste pizza from around 20 different local pizza shops.

Sunday brunch was french toast from that same loaf of bread from the Clintonville market, topped with non-local powdered sugar (hey, it was in the cupboard, and makes for happy french toast!) and local raspberries and maple syrup. Accompanying it, as usual, is peppered bacon from Bluescreek at the North Market.



Sunday dinner started with local vegetable soup (including broccoli, cauliflower, onions, mushrooms, cabbage, chard, zucchini, pattypan squash, carrots and celery) made with homemade stock. I didn't get a picture of it. The main meal was Italian sausage with the last of the grapes (wonderful fall flavors, seasoned with a little Balsamic vinegar) served over polenta made with fresh corn and goat cheese. Not very photogenic, but good nonetheless.

Eat Local Challenge - Day One

I thought I'd begin with a photo of a usual fall breakfast ingredients here at Green Leanings. The oatmeal is from Stutzman farms in Millersburg, Ohio - 84.5 miles from my home. They also make cereals with puffed corn and spelt, and I'll be adding those to the breakfast roster as the month goes on. The maple sugar (best thing ever!) is from Pleiades Maple Farm in Mt. Gilead, Ohio (~43 miles), and the apple (variety: golden grimes) is from the orchards of Bill and Vicky Thomas in Philo, Ohio - approximately 73 miles. I peel and grate the apple into the oatmeal as it cooks, which doubles the volume and makes a great and healthy breakfast. A little maple sugar to sweeten and a sprinkle of cinnamon, and it's pure heaven.

Lunch today was leftover pork roast (from Bluescreek in Marysville, Oh, about 30 miles) with cider gravy from the aforementioned orchard. I also cooked an acorn squash from Elizabeth Telling farm, which is 115 miles by car (but still within the 100-mile radius) and drizzled it with maple syrup from Pleiades.

Tonight I am attending a cooking class at Columbus' historic North Market, so who knows how local the food will be. The market is home to Bluescreek meats, the Greener Grocer (emphasis on local produce) and other fine purveyors of local food, as well as a wonderful farmer's market on Saturday.

Since I will be eating at class tonight I decided to have the launch dinner last night, and it was a stir fry with a veritable plethora of local ingredients: chicken thighs, broccoli, edamame, yellow summer squash, shitake mushrooms, scallions (from the garden), carrots (3 varieties), and swiss chard. It was so full of veggies that we didn't even miss the rice! The chicken and most vegetables were purchased at - you guessed it - the North market.